How long is your tail?

by Neal Dodd on 11/09/2018

One of the most common questions we are asked is; over what period of time can I expect to receive response from my door drop?

Well there is no easy answer; it will vary by business sector, depend upon the content of your leaflet and different distribution methods may influence response patterns, certainly in the very short term.

Royal Mail door to door’s delivery period is six days starting on a Monday and completing on Saturday, where Mondays are working days.

So if you have not seen any or little response by Wednesday, there is no need to press the panic button, you are barely halfway through the distribution period.

Team distribution commonly also works to weekly distribution patterns, but unlike Royal Mail, it’s also a system that can be affected by inclement weather, so there can be delays.

But you the client also control response patterns.

Some clients will stagger their distribution window, perhaps to help control response which may be measured as footfall into a restaurant/pub, or simply enable them to handle calls/online response/emails etc.

Is there a call to action within your copy which identifies that to qualify for the discounted offer, the consumer has to purchase or book by a given date, or is it just open ended?

If you have limited capacity, i.e. a theatre, perhaps emphasise the offer is limited and that “early booking is advised” to encourage swift response.

Retailers can employ a “while stocks last” ploy to encourage consumers to take immediate action.

Money off coupons always carry expiry dates, generally months, but the period will quite probably reflect perhaps existing purchasing patterns and cycles which will vary by product.

And some clients’ activity is timeless.

Charities completing legacy drops rarely include time limitations and its not unknown for response to be received months, even years after a drop was completed.

We increasingly live in an instant world, where as consumers we have so much information and knowledge at our fingertips.

But equally, how often do we leave something to the last minute and negotiate with a supplier to fulfil an expired offer?

A client recently complained of late distribution based upon a couple of sales enquiries received after the offer’s closing date.

We of course agreed to investigate requesting the postcodes in question, but also asked for all the response data so we could produce a map plotting the spread across the distribution area.

The analysis showed one complaint postcode in the same road as an enquiry received on day 3 of the drop and another complaint was in a cluster of response received throughout the drop, so the claims of late distribution were highly questionable.

And as we recently suggested in another recent post, if you enjoy a surge of visitor traffic to your website and door drop is perhaps your only form of engagement at that time, is that not a sign that the door drop is happening?

Response may not be immediate and it may take some time, but that is of course also dependent upon how attractive your offer is.

Don’t forget, research also shows that printed items can remain in households for several weeks, so not all response will be instant.

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